Luger '38: Papered bringback from 2 wars

[Blicero]

File this one in the "I threw in a desperate and undervalued bid and was later staggered by a winner notification" department. Maybe being sold on a lesser populated site than gunbroker affected the views and final price. Maybe I overvalue the portrait of history that capture papers can provide. All I know is I scarcely see papered Lugers available for sale, and I jumped at the chance to land one.

First up is the meat, the hardware itself. A '38 S/42 Mauser Luger:






All visible numbers matching. I will not be disassembling this one to check the grip, firing pin numbers etc.
A ton of people get fired up about the 1911 idiot scratch. But I've never heard anyone get rowdy over or even mention how common it is to see them on a Luger. Look by the side plate on enough Lugers and you'll see evidence that someone didn't know how to disassemble them properly. You can see screwdriver prints by the side plate here. Or kill marks!









Noticeable finish loss from holster wear by the muzzle




Wear and pitting across the back strap, stock lug, receiver hump, frame rail and trigger guard







The grips are in very nice condition, no cracks, nicks, splits or gouges. Minimal flattening. There are a few tiny globs of green paint inside the checkering on the left grip.




The magazine is an incorrect for the year fxo blued/black bottom.



A few other random pics







The paperwork.
Four documents came with the pistol, all named to one Alfred J Cordes, enlisted 1942 out of New York. My dad & I sat around drinking whiskey, talking old guns, and we were trying to pin down Cordes' ethnicity or nationality based on his name. Pops likes the Spanish, possibly Haitian/Puerto Rican/South American persuasion, a la the name Cortez. But I found a town in Italy called Cortese. I think Cordes is an Ellis Island bastardization of Cortes or Cortese. Who the hell knows.

The first is his 1945 European theater trophy paperwork. They were usually made in triplicate and I have two copies, one with off-center type strikes. Notice how the paper is registering two pistols. Somewhere out there is a lonely and paperless Czech pistol.





Now here's where it gets wild. Cordes managed to remain in service post-ww2, and swashbuckle his way into and out of the Korean fiasco with his trophy Luger. He'd been promoted from first lieutenant to captain in the process.
Here is his DD603, printed on the back of a scrapped topographical map of...somewhere.




And finally, a document from the regimental level allowing his return home with the Luger:



Parting thoughts.
I can't find a proper obit for a Alfred J Cordes, at least not one that matches up to his known age or location. It's unlikely but possible that at 95, the old codger is still kicking. I would love to find proof of life, or death, or at least maybe find some of his kinfolk. I'd like to thank them/him for his service.

I'm working on finding his personnel records but running into some bureaucratic red tape with the national archives. We'll see what I can turn up.

Thank for reading along 

[Blicero]

Or vise grips! That might be the idiot scratch cause here.

Full shot of the map. Weirdly, of all the neat little nuances and personal tidbits on the paperwork, the map is my favorite.

[Phosphorus32]

Wow, that's a great Luger! Such extraordinary provenance. It's great to have a pistol with so much history documented that provides a few landmarks in the career of an army veteran 

The names on that map all appear to be Japanese. Perhaps Okinawa? My dad was stationed there for a couple years just after cessation of (active) hostilities.

[Donp236]

Blicero very nice lugar, not into them much but you did great with capture papers too.  When are you going to pics of the CZ?

[Loose}{Cannon]

Un freaking believable.  Does it smell like fromundakraut??

[Phosphorus32]

Looks like it's a map of a region in northern Honshu.  Probably, just using any available paper at the army unit where he was attached.

http://google-maps.pro/satellite/Oashizawa#38.847609,140.142296,15

[Saigon1965]

What a wonderful find!

This is the first time I've seen the DD603 that is earlier than Vietnam -

I have a S/42 that is a bring back from Vietnam -

I wish you the best in your search for the Vet's info -

Saigon1965 -

[Blicero]

Blicero very nice lugar, not into them much but you did great with capture papers too.  When are you going to pics of the CZ?

Good eye, Don.
I wish I could show you pics of it but I don't have it.

Which brings me to my point.
I need help finding cz27 serial #105111. If you own one, check the serials. Got a buddy who collects them? Talk to him for me.
If anyone out there is able to locate and help me buy cz27 serial 105111, I will pay you a handsome finder's fee.

Thank you very much!

[Greasemonkey]

Blicero very nice lugar, not into them much but you did great with capture papers too.  When are you going to pics of the CZ?

Good eye, Don.
I wish I could show you pics of it but I don't have it.

Which brings me to my point.
I need help finding cz27 serial #105111. If you own one, check the serials. Got a buddy who collects them? Talk to him for me.
If anyone out there is able to locate and help me buy cz27 serial 105111, I will pay you a handsome finder's fee.

Thank you very much!

Wish you the best of luck in finding it,    my papered Luger list a LP.08 as well, I've cried no joy in hopes of ever finding it.

[Blicero]

I feel like my head is about to pop.
I found the cz listed on the paperwork. When in doubt, start at the source.
I called the shop in Vegas asking if they'd ever owned the pistol, totally expecting to be told no.
So the girl bangs away on the computer after I explained the situation. She says oh yes we sold that pistol in August 2015. After begging her to contact the receiving FFL and tell them my situation she graciously agreed. But then I remembered she had told me she only sells guns online, so I dug up her auction history and found this.
http://www.gunauction.com/buy/13522826

They had the entire bringback package and split it up. Unbelievable.
I found the high bidder on another forum and just reached out to him. I have a raging full salute history tent pitched.

[running-man]

That's some good dectective work there Kevin!  Lucky that it's on gunauction and not gunbroker or that listing would be long long gone!  Let us know if you manage to get it!

[Loose}{Cannon]

I hope you can track down that missing mag for that 1911 you sold me....for uh, history.

[Blicero]

I'm just flabbergasted here. I have a WTB ad on forums that I was convinced I'd be bumping for decades or until I quit German stuff for some other obsession like basket weaving or calligraphy. I was convinced that the pistol was at the bottom of the Hudson River after being used as a Saturday night special. Convinced that the CZ never even made it home because Cordes lost it in a cockfight or poker game the night before making the trip home. I was convinced that it would be an eternally fruitless and futile endeavor finding that needle in a worldwide haystack. One phone call from a woman changed all that.

I talked to the woman who runs the shop for a good 45 minutes. It took her a while to access the info I was looking for, so to fill the silence I was explaining the historical beauty of reuniting the guns, asking her questions about who she bought it from, was it a man or someone named Cordes? She said the name was not Cordes but that the pistols were both in hock since 2013. That tells me that whoever had these guns cherished them. You don't keep an item pawned for two years, paying off interest, unless the package is something extremely valuable to you. So I'm thinking that it's highly likely it's a descendant of Mr. Cordes who had pawned it.

Shows how little I know about Czech pistols too. It's a cz24 rather than a 27. I'm not sure I even would have found it for sale had it ever been listed on a place like the broker.

The buyer seems like an honest collector, someone who will definitely be sympathetic to the cause. I hope he hasn't fallen too deeply in love with the pistol yet.

I hope you can track down that missing mag for that 1911 you sold me....for uh, history.

[running-man]

It's a bit of a catch 22 with this one being in a "collector's" hands.  On the one hand he may be sympathetic to your cause, and you being the majority stakeholder with 2/3 of the package (the luger and the paperwork) vs his 1/3 unknown-to-him-origined VZ, he might understand the natural flow should be for it to head your way for a reasonable price.  If he perceives that he has you over a barrel, however, that misc. VZ suddenly becomes very special to him.  "So you say it's a bringback?  "And you have the other gun on the DD 603?"  "Well golly, I simply couldn't part with it for under $X000!"

Or perhaps more insultingly, he tosses you a $500 offer to buy your portion of the package.  After all that junky notzi gun and those worthless & likely photocopied papers would really fit well into his collection too! (i.e. I'm going to put these together and double my money on Gunbroker next week). 

Hopefully you get in touch with a guy who is reasonable about this whole deal.  Good luck!  humb1 

Oh, and try not to pass off the creepy "Hi I'm a total stranger who tracked you down based on a S/N of a single gun you bought from a pawn shop several years ago..." vibe.  Though this is a pretty good eye opener I think.  If one guy trying for a brief time can find what firearms another generic guy owns, the gov't with all it's resources and computing power most certainly knows more.

[Phosphorus32]

Great detective work Kevin!  It'd be great to find out more about the veteran if you can trace it back further. I sure hope he lets the pistol go for a reasonable price. I don't know how difficult it is to find these CZ24s in the US. What info I could find said there were 170,000 made, so I wouldn't imagine they're too dear.

[Blicero]

The owner of the cz24 called me!
He's a sweetheart of a guy, seems very interested in trying to get the pistol into my hands. We're working on hammering out some details. Onward & upward!

[martin08]

There are very few reunification attempt stories with as much promise as yours.  Hope it comes together!

That fxo mag is high demand item.  You should easily be able to trade for a proper (but likely mismatch numbered) aluminum base mag, and pocket a hundred bucks or more in the process.

[shawker71]

Finding that other pistol was just short of a miracle in itself. If he really is sympathetic to your cause and you are able to purchase it would be an amazing feat.

[Blicero]

With Capt. Cordes' cz24 in my hands, the package is now complete. I admittedly do not know anything about Czech pistols, so for those who do, let me pose this question to you. 90% of cz24s I look at do not have numbered magazines. This one does. Why?

I found an Easter egg in the flap of the holster. Cordes had written his name in there a long time ago. It's fairly apparent to the naked eye but I had a tough time capturing it with my iphone.










I think I found an obituary for him. I'm loath to believe that it's actually his, considering how plain and unceremonious it is for a veteran of two major American wars. He's not even buried in Arlington for crying out loud. But I know that he was born in New York in 1920 so I think this has to be him. https://www.myheritage.com/research/collection-10002/us-social-security-death-index-ssdi?itemId=14044389-&action=showRecord

[Blicero]

I'm sorry if those pics are all cockamamie. I thought I oriented them properly in photobucket.